3 Hours Of TV Can Kill You?

A new study recently published yesterday in the Journal of the American Heart Association revealed that people who spend more than two hours a day watching TV could double their risk of early death. While researchers have previously proven a link between the two, this new project has come up with data that reportedly fortifies that connection.

The study was conducted by an investigative team from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. The researchers studied the viewing habits of 13,000 adult participants in order to further clarify the relationship between watching television and premature death.

They first made certain that none of the participants had health issues such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease in order to avoid skewing the results. They observed the subjects for eight years and compared the rate of death to several sedentary activities. While they found no definitive connection between an early death and such activities as computer usage or driving, the same could not be said when it came to watching television.

Can too much “American Idol” and Reality TV kill you?/Image:NotWorld

Their research revealed that “every two hours” of additional TV viewing significantly added to the risk of numerous “life-threatening diseases.” When compared to participants who reported watching less than an hour of TV per day, the risk of death from cancer rose 21 percent. The risk of heart disease rose 44 percent and the risk of developing other diseases rose a collective 55 percent.

These pronounced results caused even the scientists themselves to doubt their data. They were fully aware that even a strong link does not guarantee a causal relationship. They went back to work controlling for other factors that might have had an effect on their results.

They disqualified 35 deaths that could have shown that poor health can result in more TV viewing time. They adjusted for the tendency to eat more sugar-heavy foods and/or processed snacks while watching television. They controlled for other factors including age, gender, histories of smoking and weight. This only resulted in strengthening the tie between the two.

No one is prepared to declare that TV is responsible for increases in risks involving death. Early critics were quick to claim that “not every factor has been considered” and say that premature death is not as directly connected to TV viewing as the results seem to indicate.

Nevertheless, lead researcher Professor Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez, from the University of Navarra pointed out that “(t)elevision viewing is a major sedentary behavior and there is an increasing trend toward all types of sedentary behaviors” and other sedentary activities like driving or using a computer still require muscle tension and small movements while watching television doesn’t make any demands of one’s muscles.

Studies on this subject all agree that limiting sedentary activities such as watching TV in favor of exercise and eating healthy are the best ways to reduce the risk of an early death.  Martinez-Gonzalez concludes: “Our findings suggest adults may consider increasing their physical activity, avoid long sedentary periods, and reduce television watching to no longer than one to two hours each day.”